The campaign to falsify the record of the Rudd and
Gillard Governments by the Murdoch and Fairfax media has not
abated since the September election. If anything, it's
accelerated, writes
Alan Austin.

JUST THIS MONTH, media characterisations of the Labor governments
from members of Parliament, past and present, include
“bastardry”,“backstabbing”,
“dysfunction” and “idiocy”.

Well, of course, we would expect Coalition MPs to spread those
condemnations of Labor. But here’s the thing — they are from
Australian Labor Party members.

This malignant commentary includes accusations not just damaging
to Labor’s community standing, but often verifiably false. This
would appear powerful confirmation of the effectiveness of the
mainstream media’s disinformation campaign over the last six
years.

Former Labor speaker in the House of Representatives Anna Burke gave
The Age a series of
free kicks against the Labor Party with her emotional
outbursts on ABC Television two weeks ago.

Maxine
McKew – once Labor’s star member for Bennelong – also
giftedThe Age such gems as Labor’s refugee policy
being “perverse and cruel” and Kevin Rudd’s trip to the
Northern Territory to announce tax changes “idiocy”.

Former minister Nicola Roxon
gave all media the golden opportunity to use Kevin Rudd and
bastard in a prominent headline with salacious criticisms of
Labor in the text below.

Perversely, given what is known of the mainstream media’s
willingness routinely to
suppress pro-Labor good news and fabricate
anti-Labor bad news, several Labor figures actually went out of
their way to write fresh opinion pieces distorting Labor’s
record.

Rodney
Cavalier, minister in the Wran and Unsworth governments in
NSW,
wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald that the ALP
since the 1990s has been in a

'...degeneration that shows no sign of ending.'

'Labor is suffering brain death,' he asserted,
'because most members and senators are essentially the
same'.

Former ACT chief minister Jon Stanhope and
ex-staffers Ross Maxwell and Greg Friedewald gave their party an
extraordinary
spray in The Canberra Times.

Their piece highlighted 'venomous infighting' and

'...the backstabbing, disloyalty and dysfunction that was
the hallmark of and will be the enduring legacy of the Labor
government.'

Bizarrely, these long-time Labor members claim some current
shadow ministers

'...deserve to have been expelled from caucus.'

Former federal Labor candidate Francis Ventura
penned a hostile
piece for Labor’s most vicious critic The Daily
Telegraph, which they gleefully headed

'Labor a joke but the true believers are not amused.'

Ventura – a young politician who climbed aboard the ABC's
Shitsville Express – described party procedures as

'... a too-smart-by-half process whereby the outcome was
determined in advance'

and an

'... act of pseudo-brilliance [which] nearly matches that
of Azerbaijani President Aliyev …'

'Well, the warlords’ time is up,' Ventura declared.
'We’re taking our party back …'

Yet he seems happy to bolster the Murdoch media empire’s war
effort which has surely been far more
destructive to Labor than any factional leader’s.

Union officials outside the party have joined the chorus. The
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union’s Dave Noonan
offeredThe Australian the advice that the ALP had a

“... lack of values [and] the absence of progressive
political ideas” and was beset with “disunity and ego-driven
personality politics."

Of course criticisms of the party’s rules and functioning are
entirely appropriate. Essential, in fact. And now is indeed the
time. But there is no need to do so in Murdoch and Fairfax
outlets, thereby validating their authority and credibility.

Cool spots among the bushfires of self-immolation were Labor
member for Fraser, Andrew Leigh, and
Australian Young Labor president, Kerrie
Kahlon, whose more disciplined pieces in The
Australian last
Monday and
Tuesday, respectively, were almost entirely free of
anti-Labor vitriol and falsehoods.

More constructive still were party members whose critiques
appeared in the alternative media. These include
Peter Wicks in Independent Australia,
Geoff Gallop in New Matilda and by
Kimberley Ramplin in Guardian Australia.

The strategists who run the Liberal Party’s campaign through
Fairfax and Murdoch publications will have been satisfied,
however, that these moderate opinions were overwhelmed by the
multiplicity of the mendacious.

The reality, of course, is virtually the opposite of the Fairfax
and Murdoch narrative. The Rudd and Gillard Governments were far
from dysfunctional or incompetent.

Leadership tensions, while real, were neither unique nor
inhibiting of effective administration. Most recent Australian
governments and many others in Western democracies have
experienced these tensions. The Gillard versus Rudd issues were
less vitriolic and debilitating than
Peter Costello versus John Howard,
Paul Keating versus Bob Hawke, or Andrew Peacock
versus Malcolm Fraser. Only the media fixation was more extreme.

Some legislation may have been delayed by internal ructions
during the first Rudd period. But the Gillard years saw a record
rate of legislative
achievement, including several far-reaching reforms. The
level of ministerial integrity, as measured by dismissals for
incompetence or corruption, surpassed the record of the Savage
Government in New Zealand in the 1930s. Labor 2007-13 now has the
best profile of any Westminster government since the 1820s.

Most of the entrenched foreign affairs
problems Labor inherited in 2007 were resolved. Ministers in
the economics portfolios produced the
strongest and most equitable economy in the world today.

Watchers abroad – who do not read the falsehoods of the local
media, but rely on accurate data instead – awarded Australia
triple A credit ratings with all three agencies for the first
time in 2011, Finance Minister of the Year 2011, International
Infrastructure Minister of the Year 2012, a seat on the United
Nations Security Council, chair of the Pacific Island Forum, and
the vote to chair next year’s G20 group of the world’s 20 major
economies.

Dysfunctional?

As for Labor’s status now, there are more positives than
negatives. Party membership has just increased by about 4,000.
The leadership ballot was judged successful even by Labor’s
opponents. A mere 30,000 voters changing sides, if that were
to happen in the most marginal seats, would see
Labor returned. And the latest by-election – in the
scandal-plagued state of NSW – saw a record
swing to Labor of more than 26.0 per cent.

Imagine what Labor’s standing might be if efforts to destroy it
were resisted rather than advanced by party members.

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Independent Australia is a progressive journal focusing on politics, democracy, the environment, Australian history and Australian identity. It contains news and opinion from Australia and around the world. [ read more ]